Therefore, after reading, as a matter of form, the commission sent to Alan and Alexis, he addressed himself at once to the business of the moment, and before they had been discussing the plan of defence for many minutes he was forced to admit to himself that the President’s son, young as he was, was more than his master both in aerial and naval tactics.
For the greater part of the morning plan after plan was suggested, thrashed out, and either accepted or thrown aside, and when he took his leave he shook hands with both Alan and Alexis far more cordially than he had done in greeting, and said with brief, blunt candour—
“This is not the first time that a woman has used a man to upset the peace of the world, and I tell you honestly that I once thought you had both turned traitors. I don’t think so now, and I am heartily glad you are back. If you could only have returned three years ago a lot of trouble might have been saved, but I must confess that you have both learnt more in five years than I have in twenty. I will follow your instructions to the letter.”
“What is done is done,” said Alan, smiling, and yet with a grave dignity that showed Admiral Forrest that, despite all that had happened, he was standing in the presence of his master. “The work in hand now is to regain what we have lost, and if every man does his duty we shall do so. I think everything is arranged now, and as we have no time to lose I will say good-morning.”
He held out his hand as he spoke, and Admiral Forrest took his dismissal and his leave at the same time.
Captain Ernstein took six men out of the Cachalot and placed them at the disposal of Alan and Alexis, for the working of the Narwhal, and then took his leave to execute his part of the plan of defence.
It was a bitterly cold day, for the southern winter had already set in in all its severity. The sea to the north of the island was comparatively smooth, but swept every now and then with violent gusts of wind from the southward. The sky was entirely covered by thick masses of cold grey cloud, every now and then torn up into great rolling masses by the sudden blasts of icy wind from the pole, which drove fierce storms of hard frozen snow across the bare and desolate island.
But the roughness of the elements was a matter of small concern to the crews of the air-ships and the submarine cruisers, for both were independent alike of sea and storm. The former could literally ride upon the wings of the fiercest gale that ever blew. Their interiors were warm and wind-proof, and their machinery was powerful enough to drive them four and five times as fast as the air-currents in which they floated, while the latter had only to sink a few feet below the level of the waves to find perfect calm.
The days, in short, were past when men had been at the mercy of the elements, and so the atmospheric conditions which would have made a modern naval attack upon a rocky and exposed coast almost impossible were not even taken into account in preparing to meet the threatened assault on Kerguelen Island.